


Before the Storm

by Interstellararia



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Other, UH so this is mostly ocs but they're all in the fallout universe, the three of them are in a poly relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 09:45:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17743556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Interstellararia/pseuds/Interstellararia
Summary: Leo, Nora and Nikolas Hartmann enjoy a life at home after surviving a previous war together. Little do they know, another is to begin and change their lives forever.





	Before the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> No spoilers for the actual game besides going through the opening sequence of events.

Pale light filters into the room, into Leo’s eyes. He grunts and tries to roll over, but ends up bumping into someone. Blonde hair falls into his face as he looks over his shoulder in half-awake confusion. Nora’s tiny form is squashed between him and Nikolas. Nikolas is sprawled out on his portion of the large bed. Leo yawns, tries to roll over and go back to sleep, but cries from the other room catch his attention. He groans and slowly crawls out of bed, nearly tripping over a blanket in the process. 

“It’s alright, buddy. I’m on my way.” He mumbles as he enters the hall and gets to the room on the end. Leo opens the door, and Shawn’s cries get louder. “Papa’s here.” 

The little one’s cries grow a little quieter when Leo approaches. “Aw, you’re just sad that you woke up, huh bud.” He’s greeted with a little giggle at that comment. Leo leans over the side of the crib, watching Shawn giggle and reach towards him. Leo pokes the baby’s cheeks and lets the little one grab onto his thumb. “You’re so cute.” 

A touch on Leo’s ass startles him, and his head shoots up, tangling in the mobile hanging over Shawn’s bed. Shawn erupts in laughter as he’s watching his dad fumble with the mobile in his face. The culprit is Nora, and she’s also laughing, but suddenly remembered that Nik was still sleeping and tries to quiet down. 

“Sorry, love.” Nora leans close and presses a kiss to Leo’s cheek. “I’ll go see if Codsworth started breakfast yet. Can you see if Shawn needs changing, then wake up the big guy?” 

“Yeah.” Leo returns the kiss and picks up Shawn to check his diaper after Nora leaves the room. As expected, the baby had made a mess. After cleaning him up, Leo carries Shawn on his hip into the bedroom. 

“Incoming attack baby!” Leo exclaims as he imitates airplane engine noises and makes Shawn hover over Nik. Shawn squeals and wiggles in his grasp. Leo sets the baby down on Nikolas’ chest and the little one tries to crawl, but only succeeds in wiggling his arms and legs. Disturbed by the movement, Nik groggily opens his grey eyes. Shawn wiggles and his tiny fists hit his dad’s chin. 

“Oof…” 

“Morning babe.” Leo smiles and kisses Nik’s forehead. “Come on, time to get up. Nora and Cosdworth are working on breakfast.” 

Nik sniffs the air and catches the smells from the kitchen. “Pancakes? Hell yeah!” He tosses off the blankets, clutches Shawn to his chest, gets up from bed and darts out of the room. 

Leo chuckles and jogs out of the room after him. 

He meets up with everyone in the kitchen and can’t help but smile. This was his family now. He, Nik and Nora finally had some peace together after the war. But that wouldn’t last. 

During the middle of breakfast, an emergency broadcast comes on the television. Codsworth stares blankly at the machine, and the humans in the room stop eating their food. 

“We have word that several cities have been destroyed--” The television is suddenly drowned out as sirens echo through the neighborhood. 

Nik curses and scoops up Shawn, while Leo escorts Nora out the door. The day before, a vault-tec representative had stopped by to give them a spot in the vault close to the neighborhood since they were war veterans. They run, and Leo’s heart pounds out of his chest. He holds tightly to Nik’s shirt sleeve and Nora’s hand. Shawn cries in confusion at the situation. 

They make it to the front gate, and Nora takes charge. “Hartmann residence reporting.” 

The guard checks his list. “Two adult males, adult female, infant male, you’re all set to go.” 

Nora leads the group through the gate and up to the vault entrance. Leo’s hands are shaking terribly as he struggles to breathe. He’s panicking, and desperately clutching to his partners to try and keep calm. 

“Look at us, love.” Nik stares Leo down as Nora tilts his head up with her hand. 

“We’re going to be alright.” She smiles softly at her family. 

A massive explosion suddenly shakes the ground as the door to the vault sinks into the ground. Nora wraps her arms around her family. “We’re going to be okay, we’re going to be okay…” 

The elevator seems ungodly slow as it goes down. Leo’s still shaking, but not as much anymore. Once it lands, there’s a few members of vault-tec staff to greet them. 

“Right this way everyone. We need to check you in and get you situated.” 

The rattled neighborhood members slowly file into the vault, go through a line and receive vault-tec uniforms. 

After changing, they’re redirected to another hallway. Leo clings to his partners as they walk. Shawn plays with the young man’s loose hair. 

“We need to get everyone in here for a quick scan, alright?” The vault tec worker directs them to a section of pods. 

“Alright.” Nora nods. “I can take Shawn for a bit, you’ve been carrying him all morning.” 

Nik quietly hands him over. 

“Leo, I know you’re still shaken up, but we’re going to be alright, love.” Nora gives the man’s face a reassuring touch. 

“We’ll be right next to you.” Nikolas presses a kiss to Leo’s head. “You’ll be out in a few minutes.” 

“Alright.” Leo’s voice is quiet as he smiles at his partners. 

He follows the example of the other neighborhood members and slowly gets inside the pod he was assigned. Nora is in one across from him, and Nik is in the one next to hers. 

Leo lets out a shaky breath as the lid closes. He closes his eyes to try and steady himself, but he never opens them again in that moment.  
-  
His vision is but a blur and his body is extremely stiff. What happened? 

Leo looks up to see strange men around Nora’s pod. 

“That was a damn long time for a medical exam. What the hell?” She finally recognizes that the men aren’t from vault tec. That meant trouble. Leo wants to shout, but he still feels frozen. There’s some shouting on Nora’s end, a gunshot, then silence. Worry sinks into his chest as he falls into the black depths of unconsciousness again.  
-  
Alarms blare in his ears as he wakes up again. What the hell happened? 

The lid of the pod hisses as it slowly opens. Stale air makes Leo cough as he groans, trying to shake off the stiffness in his body. He tries stepping forward, but his legs crumple underneath him, and he lands on the ground with an ungraceful thud. 

“Damn.” He slowly pulls himself off the ground and looks up to where Nik and Nora’s pods are. Nik’s pod is open and empty. Where was he? 

Nora is still sealed in her pod, minus Shawn. Leo scrambles upward and does his best to open the pod. The systems are unresponsive and won’t even tell him if she’s still alive. 

“Nora!” Leo wails and wipes at his cheeks. “Nik!” He falls to the ground, blonde hair falling in front of his face. He cries for a while, afraid of what to do without his partners. Finally, Leo looks up and spies a piece of paper that had fluttered to the ground. 

“Nora and Leo, 

If you’re actually alive and do wind up waking up, I hope you can find me. I tried my best to get your pods open, but those fuckers are definitely secure. I’ll try and swing back around to the house every month or so, if I remember. Please, for the love of everything, wake up. It’s too much to be without you. 

Nikolas” 

Leo looks up at Nora’s pod, slowly stands up and sets the letter on the control panel of her pod. 

“Please wake up, my love. You’re stronger than that.” He shakily inhales as he starts to make his way to the entrance of the vault.  
-  
Sunlight burns his eyes as the elevator brings him up to the surface. How long had it been since they went in there? The landscape looks like it’s been through hell. Leo takes a look around to judge the best way to get down the hill. He opts to slide gently down the side since he really doesn’t care if his vault suit gets dirty. At this point, Vault-Tec can go fuck themselves. 

He makes it down the hill to the bridge that leads across the river. It barely stands, but thankfully holds under his weight as he quickly crosses. He bounds across a few more hills before finally reaching the neighborhood. Booking it towards the house, he slides through the front door and frantically looks around. There was some evidence that someone had been there recently, but it was currently empty. 

“Damn.” Leo curses and runs back outside to run a frantic search of the neighborhood. Like his own house, every place was empty. Unsure of what to do with himself, he begins to wander down the road and finds himself at the Red Rocket truck stop. Even though everything’s changed around him, the massive red sign is comforting. Movement catches his eye and he sees a dog sniffing around in the garbage lying around.

Leo squats down to try and seem more approachable to the dog. 

“Hey buddy. You all alone?” 

The shepard looks at him curiously. She steps forward and immediately begins licking Leo’s face. 

“Aww, you’re a good girl.” Leo gives her some scratches behind the ear. Her tail wags happily as she sniffs him. “Do you want to come with me? Wherever I might wind up?” 

A whistle catches both of their attentions. “Millie! Here girl! Let’s go home.” 

Millie sits and barks loudly. A man walks around the corner of the truck stop, dressed head to toe in leather. He stops and drops the bat in his hands. Leo freezes, more confused than anything. The stranger had his face covered, so he was hard to recognize. 

“Leo?” The man’s somewhat raspy voice cracks as he rips the mask off his face.

“Nikolas!” Fresh tears blur Leo’s vision as he runs up to Nik and catches him in a hug. Nik lifts him off the ground and holds him tightly.

“I thought you were dead.” Nik weeps as he holds onto Leo. His black hair has gotten longer and there’s a new scar across his face. Leo’s at a loss for words. 

Millie walks over to the two of them and patiently sits next to them. 

“How long were we in there?” 

“Over 200 years.” Nik wipes at his face, dirty glove leaving a smudge. “My pod opened almost a year ago… and I really didn’t want to leave you two behind. Is Nora still in there?” 

“Yeah. And Shawn is gone…” 

“I haven’t been able to find any leads on the bastard that took our baby. I didn’t see him very clearly, but I could hear Shawn crying.” Nik shuts his eyes tightly and buries his head into Leo’s shoulder. 

“We’re going to find him, and rain hell on whoever took him, got that?” Leo holds him tightly and peppers kisses to the side of his head. 

“Yeah.” Nik sighs shakily and sets Leo down. “Let’s head back home. You’re going to stick out like a sore thumb in that uniform.” 

“We can use it for fuel when it gets cold.” 

They laugh, and for Nik, it’s the first time he’s smiled since he got out of the vault. They hold hands tightly, as if the second they let go, the other would be gone again. Followed by Millie, they head back to the house. When they get there, Codsworth is hovering near the front door. 

“Sir! Welcome home. Oh! You found Sir Leo!” The robot whirs excitedly. 

“Codsworth!” Leo pats the top of the robot’s round body. “I can’t believe you’re still running.” 

“I can hardly believe it as well, sir!” He hovers a little higher in excitement. “Is the missus still alright?”  
“Barely…” 

The voice makes all of them whirl around quickly. Nora’s standing there, clutching a hand to her shoulder and smiling weakly. Leo finds himself running towards her and enveloping her in a tight hug. Nik quickly follows suit. The three of them collapse to the ground in tears. 

“I don’t want you guys out of my sight again, okay? At least not for a while.” Nora clutches onto the two of them and presses close as she cries. 

“It’s alright, we’re here.” Leo kisses her cheek and wipes away some of the tears there. 

“We’re not leaving. Alright? And we’re going to rain hell on whoever stole Shawn.” Nik pulls his partners into his lap and holds onto them. They sit there and cling to each other for a while. “You guys should get changed. Come on.” Nik pulls them to their feet. 

They walk inside the house and decide, that after some rest, they were going looking for their son.


End file.
